I want.
The temperature is -10C in Leipzig and snow, 12 inches thick, carpets his neighbourhood. Such conditions take Ralf Rangnick back to an encounter that shaped mod
www.thetimes.co.uk
Ralf Rangnick talks to Jonathan Northcroft about how his methods brushed off on some of the biggest names in European football such as Jürgen Klopp and Thomas Tuchel
The temperature is -10C in Leipzig and snow, 12 inches thick, carpets his neighbourhood. Such conditions take Ralf Rangnick back to an encounter that shaped modern football.
It was 1984 and the amateurs he coached, Viktoria Backnang, played Dynamo Kiev, who were training in Germany. Rangnick shovelled snow off Backnang’s pitch to get the game on. In it, “I started to count Dynamo’s players, I felt they must have two or three more, they were pressing us all over the place.”
Valery Lobanovsky, Dynamo’s great coach, invited Rangnick to watch practice, “and it was obvious the way they played was no coincidence”. It sparked ideas that Rangnick would develop into principles that define how the game is played today, involving ball-orientated marking, group pressing, and instant, intense attacking. Ridiculed as “the football professor” by Germany’s old school in the 1990s, it is no exaggeration to say that, now, the charismatic 62-year-old is the most influential coach in his sport. Jürgen Klopp evolved
gegenpressing in tandem with Rangnick refining his philosophy when they were rivals and friends in Bundesliga II and after a unique career during which he coached Schalke to the Champions League semi-finals, Hoffenheim from village side to Bundesliga force, and took RB Leipzig from division four to competing for German and European titles. Rangnick disciples are everywhere.
The Bundesliga top four last weekend included Leipzig (Julian Nagelsmann), Wolfsburg (Oliver Glasner) and Eintracht Frankfurt (Adi Hütter) — all led by coaches Rangnick developed while director of football for Red Bull’s clubs. Bayern Munich’s tactical brain, the assistant coach Danny Röhl, is a Rangnick protégé and Manchester City’s Champions League opponents, Borussia Mönchengladbach, are coached by another, Marco Rose.
Outside Germany, a network of former Rangnick players, coaches, assistants, scouts and analysts spreads. Included are the PSV Eindhoven manager, Roger Schmidt, Woolwich’s Per Mertesacker and Southampton’s Ralph Hasenhüttl. Three weeks ago, Rangnick himself very nearly came to the Premier League.
He was invited to be Chelsea head coach after detailed talks with Marina Granovskaia and Petr Cech. However, the offer was until the end of the season. “I said, ‘I would love to come and work with you, but I cannot do it for four months. I am not an interim coach.’ To the media and players you would be the ‘four-month manager’, a lame duck, from day one,” Rangnick says.
Far from disappointed, he is sanguine, because it became clear during discussions that the coach Roman Abramovich wanted was Thomas Tuchel — and Tuchel is yet another Rangnick product. “Thomas became a coach through me,” Rangnick remembers affectionately. “He was my player at Ulm and had to finish his career because of knee problems. I gave him a job as our under-15 coach. He didn’t even intend being a coach, he was working at a bar in Stuttgart.
“If you watch Chelsea now you see a mutual plan for when they have the ball or the other team have the ball. Thomas is tactically on a very sophisticated level.
“Zsolt Low [Tuchel’s No 2] was my player and assistant coach at Leipzig and plays a vital role in his staff and you can see from the way he interacts with players Thomas also has great leadership skills. Appointing him was a top solution. I can only congratulate Thomas and Chelsea for the choice.”
In 2012, Rangnick declined an offer to manage West Bromwich Albion but four years later the technical director who tried to hire him, Dan Ashworth, returned with another proposal: to succeed Roy Hodgson as England manager. “The interview went great and the panel was Dan, Martin Glenn and David Gill. In the end, it was between me and Sam Allardyce and they decided on Sam,” Rangnick recalls. “Dan called and said, ‘Ralf, you would have been my candidate but the others wanted an English coach as a role model for the next generation. In the end we know how that went. . .”
Working in England remains an itch Rangnick would love to scratch. When he was ten, he was set a school essay: what do you want to be when you grow up? “Normally a ten-year-old boy writes an astronaut or pilot. I wrote I want to become a teacher of English and PE,” Rangnick says.
He studied both at university and in 1979 arrived in Brighton to spend a year at the University of Sussex. “I had planned to go to Yeovil because I knew a family there but my friend, Michael Schoeck said, ‘Ralf — what do you want in Yeovil? To learn to milk cows?’ He convinced me to go to London or nearby.’
They went to Brighton together. “I had my fast train to London Victoria and watched Woolwich at Highbury, West Ham at Upton Park, Tottenham at White Hart Lane. When Brighton were at home I went to the old Goldstone Ground.”
The intensity of English football influenced his ideas. “Astonishing for me was the atmosphere in stadiums. I saw on TV the waves [of fans swaying] behind the goal and thought, ‘How does that happen?’ I decided, like a guinea pig, to try it myself so I went to Highbury, to the Clock End, and have never had so much fear in my life.
“I went to the 1980 FA Cup final, Woolwich v West Ham and it was amazing. The fans created an individual song for each player. ‘One Liam Brady’ — Liam would applaud, and then another for Frank Stapleton. I watched a cup tie at the Goldstone, Brighton v Liverpool, a boring zero-zero, raining all the time, but still there was that sense of humour of British fans. The Brighton supporters were singing ‘Seagulls! Seagulls!’ And Liverpool were singing back, ‘Seaweed! Seaweed!’ ”
Rangnick played for non-League Southwick and 75 minutes before his debut he was changed and ready to warm up on the pitch. Except his team-mates were still in the club bar, playing the fruit machines. “The captain said ‘Ralf, what are you doing? We’re not warming up until five minutes before kick-off.’ ”
In his second match he suffered broken ribs and a punctured lung after a defender ploughed into his back, leading to four weeks in hospital in Chichester. “I experienced English physicality,” he says wryly, “and it was a completely different culture and style of football. As a midfielder, the ball flew all the time over my head.
“But the important lesson was the way they were coaching each other, the players and the coaches. Always ‘come on’, always trying to encourage. I learnt how important this is in football, that you encourage and push each other on the pitch.
“Probably in one of my former lives, I was an Englishman. Whenever I fly to London, in the last three minutes [descending] into Heathrow it feels like coming home. I know it’s crazy.
“I would love to work in England and I feel I could start from day one there, but it would have to be something special. It depends on what club and if they are willing to have a German coach.”
Tuesday brings Nagelsmann versus Klopp. “When I was at Hoffenheim, Julian was 22 and coached the under-16 team. You could see even then that this was a highly talented coach, always thinking one or two moves ahead like in chess.
“Jürgen is the full package. Tactically, leadership, everybody likes him. We call people like him
menschenfänger — somebody who can just capture others. I don’t see a single area where he has space for improvement.
“But it is obvious Liverpool are struggling,” Rangnick says. “They have too many injured players and up front the ‘fab three’ are fabulous, but the replacements are a lower level. They don’t seem fresh, while Leipzig are in very good shape. I would have said a couple of months ago this one was 65 per cent Liverpool but now it’s a 50-50 game.”
then I’d counter with having to work for Levy. Spurs manager on a CV represents failure. Rogers may well be a preening narcissist looking out solely for himself but he also works in this business and must know that THFC/Levy/ENIC are to be avoided...